


the fisherman & the selkie

by havisham



Series: havisham's SASO 2017 works collection [31]
Category: Free!
Genre: Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:09:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: I will stay and be thy husband / Though it be the death of me.Rin rescues a selkie from sea, and an old story repeats.





	the fisherman & the selkie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SASO 2017, Bonus Round 3: Fan Soundtracks, for the [prompt](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=12694597#cmt12694597), Rin/Haru, [The Maiden & The Selkie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGT5lBve_v4).

Rin went to the sea for every day that his father failed to return from it. The other villagers clucked their tongues and shook their heads, but his mother allowed it, as long as he went to school and came home with his little sister’s hand clasped firmly in his. Gou would sometimes go with him to the seashore, and sometimes Sousuke would too. 

But they never saw what Rin saw, never knew what he was looking for. Eventually, both of them stopped coming along, but Rin always kept his vigil. 

*

Rin was a young man now and the city was calling him. He wouldn’t be a fisherman like his father, he swore to his mother. He’d become something else and make her proud. She agreed with worried eyes, and didn’t ask how he would take himself away from the sea. He still went to the shore, regular as the tide, to watch for something that never came. 

Then the day came when he received his letter, inviting him to go to university. That night, his friends all conspired to treat him, fill his stomach with food and wine until his steps were as rolling as if he was on a ship at sea. They were all walking back, the loud rambunctious group of them, down the road that followed the shoreline. 

Something silver caught Rin’s eye and he broke away from the group. 

They called for him to stop, but he raced on, heedless of their words. The moon hung bright and round over his head, bathing the beach in a silvery glow. But that wasn’t what attracted his eye. Instead, spread carefully across the sand, was a darker patch of grey. He picked up and realized it was a sealskin, expertly rendered, seamless to the touch, and smoother than silk -- or what he imagined silk to be. 

Dazzled by such a princely gift, he rolled up the sealskin and put it under his coat. He heard then a high, lonesome wail, and he whipped around to find the source of the noise. He saw then a slim figure rise from in the white and roaring surf. Though they were far from each other, Rin could have swore the person looked right at him before a large wave knocked them off their feet. 

Rin raced towards the surf, throwing off his coat and outer garments as he did so. It was autumn and the water was a shock to his skin. He dived into the spot where he thought the person had disappeared, but could find no one. He cast about, hopelessly, and his thoughts turned, inevitably, towards his father. 

Here was yet another he had lost to the sea. 

But then, he felt something strong grip his arm and he pulled up with all his might. Then he saw, for the first time, a pale oval of a face and long, black hair wrapped around a slim neck. Their eyes were closed, but Rin could see the slight rise and fall of their lungs. They still lived! 

Meanwhile, on the shore, he heard voices call his name, chief among them Sousuke’s voice, distinctive even over the roar of the surf. Rin called back, dragging the limp body with him. His limbs were so weak that he dumped his burden into Sousuke’s waiting arms almost before he reached them. 

“Cover them,” he said weakly, while someone -- Kisumi, perhaps -- grabbed Rin’s own coat and wrapped it around him. They moved slowly towards the line of houses just beyond the beach -- Rin’s own house was there, the last in the line, with a single lantern lit against the dark. 

*

The stranger slept in Rin’s bed for three days and two nights. The doctor, when he came, said that there was nothing he could do for him, save hope he woke naturally. Rin’s mother looked at him, Gou and Sousuke did too. 

“Him?” Rin said, blankly. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” the doctor said. 

The next morning the stranger was awake and talking. His name was Haruka, he said, speaking with a foreign lilt. He did not remember where he had come from or anything about himself. He had been striped bare by the sea, and came upon them just as he was. 

Rin couldn't keep his eyes off of him. Rin was not a stupid man, nor did he ever act without reason. The day after Haruka’s rescue, he found the sealskin still tucked into the arm of his coat. He wrapped the coat around the skin and carefully hid it under the floorboards of his sister’s room. Then he went to see Haruka. 

Haruka’s eyes were the exact color of the sea. Rin could look at them and be lost. He knew he loved him more than he loved anyone else. “When you are recovered,” he told Haruka, “when you remember where you are from, I will take you there, and the I will go back to the university.” 

“You will not go with your friend this winter?” Haruka asked him, cocking his head. 

“I don't want to leave you.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because!” Rin flushed. “Besides, would it be so wrong if I stayed here anyway? There's no dishonor being a fisherman. My father was a fisherman.” 

Haruka stayed quiet, thinking. 

*

“You can't be serious,” Sousuke said, angrier now than Rin had ever seen him. “We were supposed to go university together -- I only applied because of you! Now you say you'll be a fisherman after all? Why, Rin?” 

“Isn't it enough that I like it?” Rin demanded, “You shouldn't worry, Sousuke, I am sure you will do great things. And we -- Gou and I -- will wait for you to return.” 

“You're staying here because that man, that castaway,” Sousuke said bitterly. “Don't think I know.” 

“If you know or not, it's no concern of mine,” Rin said, catching a flutter of a curtain in the corner of his eye. “Excuse me.” 

He went out of the house, but by the time he'd reached the end of the path, Haruka was almost to the water. The sea was calm today and the water warm, but still Rin admired the way Haru dived into the water, with absolutely fearlessness, forgetting or forgiving that it had almost killed him once. 

Haruka caught sight of him and stilled, treading water. “Why are you doing this?” 

“Because I love you, Haru!” Rin said, laughing. “I want you to stay with me forever. Say that you will!” 

“Forever is impossible,” Haruka said, but the nodded to himself. He came out of the water, as naked as the day Rin first saw him. He came up to where Rin was standing and allowed him to embrace him, touching their foreheads together. “I will stay with you as long as I can.” 

*

They did not have a bad life. In fact, it was the opposite. Rin had always had the reputation of being an eccentric. Him marrying another man was just another part of that. They kept to themselves, mostly, wrapped up in the story of their love, but gradually, one by one, the village embraced them too. 

Rin was an excellent fisherman -- his nets always seemed to be blessed with the most catch, and those who went out with him seemed to get lucky too. Haruka knew strange sea-lore and her lore that drew out results when the doctors had no answers. And he could always tell if the day would end with a storm or with the sun. “Don't go out today,” he’d tell Rin, eyes not leaving the nets he was mending. 

The village learned that if Rin’s boat stayed at port, than it was best to stay there too. As a result, though storms came and went as usual, no boats were lost for the first time in a long time. 

As the years passed, Sousuke returned to the village, trained as a doctor. He appeared at Rin’s door immediately after he had left his parents’ front steps. Rin let him, expecting him to continue the conversation they'd abandoned years ago, but instead Sousuke only asked to see Gou. 

“Gou?” Rin asked, surprised, “what do you want to see her for?” 

Gou had followed Sousuke’s footsteps to the city and become a teacher, and then returned again. The village loved her far more than anyone else. Haruka came in then, carrying basketful of flowers he had cut from the garden. Without a word, Haruka gathered up some of the white anemones and gave them to Sousuke. 

“Gou walks home from the school around this time,” Haruka said. “You won't have to go far to find her.” 

“Thank you,” Sousuke said, and tipped his hat to him and raced away. 

By the end of the spring, Sousuke proposed to her by the end of the summer, they were wed. They moved into the cottage next to Rin and Haruka’s and seemed by all accounts to be very happy. 

*

The night of Gou’s wedding, Rin left behind the drinking and the dancing, to look for Haruka. He was, of course, by the water, watching the sea. “Do you miss it? The sea,” Rin asked him, slipping his arms around Haruka’s waist.

Haruka hesitated for a moment and nodded. “I miss those I left behind. But if I were to go, I would miss this place and its people as well.” 

“Don’t go,” Rin said, pressing a kiss against Haruka’s neck. “I will die if you go, it would break my heart.” 

“Humans do not die so readily of a broken heart,” said Haruka and then turned to him, his eyes as bright as the moon on the water. Rin kissed him, to distract from the unbearable brightness in his eyes. 

*

Gou and Sousuke had a daughter, a redheaded darling with her father’s blue-green eyes, who seemed to love her Uncle Haru the best. It was just as well -- her mother went to class, and her father did his rounds and her uncle went fishing, and little Hana stayed with Haruka, clinging fast to his legs like a barnacle. 

Haruka was usually content with this state of affairs, but one day, Hana was more underfoot than usual, and Haruka’s tasks for the day seemed longer than ever. “Hana,” he told her, “go and explore the house, and come back when you have found something new to show me.” 

“All right,” she said, waving her chubby arms together as she toddled off. Haruka watched her fondly for a moment before the pressing matter of the accounts demanded his attention. He worked like this for hours before he noticed how quiet the house had become. 

A niggle of premonition bothered him and he laid aside the accounts and pen and called Hana’s name. After a brief silence, the little girl answered him back, and then came racing into the room and into Haruka’s arms. 

“Uncle Haru, I have a question,” said Hana. 

“What is it, dearest one?” 

“Why does Uncle Rin keep a leather coat under the floorboards of the empty room?” 

Haruka was silence for a moment before he set Hana down. “Show me where it is.” 

*

When Rin returned home that night, he found the fire lit and supper waiting for him, the same as always. Haruka too was in his usual place, next to fire, working with something to still his busy hands. But Rin’s greetings died in his lips when he saw what Haruka was working on. 

The sealskin had not faded or darkened in the years it had been hidden away. It gleamed in Haruka’s hands like treasure. Haruka looked at him, his eyes darker than the sea’s. 

“At first, I did not know it was your skin,” Rin said slowly. “I took it without thinking of the consequences, and kept it because I feared that you would leave if you found it.” 

“It was a part of me that you took, and in all these years, I missed it,” Haruka said, throwing the skin over his shoulders. It rippled and seemed to length down to his back. “And yes, I will have to go back. The story is always the same, Rin.” 

“You do not have to go,” Rin said stubbornly. 

“I should have gone as soon as I found the skin,” Haruka said patiently. “But I waited. I delivered Hana back to her parents and waited for you.” 

He pressed one last kiss against Rin’s mouth and walked out the door, making his way down to the sea. 

Haruka was seen no more by the villagers, nor by Rin, though soon enough a family of seals made their home nearby, and often would come upon the beach to sun themselves and frolic in the surf. 

*

Rin kept watching the water, for as long as he lived. 

**Author's Note:**

> I had this written up before I went back and actually listened to the song (listen, the thought of selkie!Haru was just too exciting, all right) -- so I realize that the song actually had a nice solution to the selkie problem. But really, the lesson behind selkies and Melusine and the crane wife is that humans are utterly incapable of either keeping their promises or not doing what they're not supposed to. Humans: always fucking it up somehow. 
> 
> That's always the central tragedy of stories like that -- impossible love -- and I ... really love that. So. Sorry for the downer.


End file.
